07/01/2013

One unexpected surprise of starting BikeHacks is the number of countries we receive hacks from. I think we have hit every continent, including Antartica - someone who rode on the contintent emailed us in the past. Perhaps our first ever 100% organic hack comes from Angus in Indonesia.

05/06/2013

Jack from bikecommuters.com passed along two great hacks. The first hack is a fender made of aluminum strip and an old election yard sign. Sometimes the clearance between brakes and tires can pose problems for fenders and he gives a great description of how he D.I.Y.'d to get around the space issue.

Second, he came up with a great double headlight system using PVC pipe because he was running out of room on his handlebars. Pretty dope setup for sure! Turns out Jack does know jack. Check out both hacks via the bikecommuters.com site.

04/30/2013

So I had the chance to test out my DIY attempt at an extended mudguard and learned that the material I ended up using was not quite rigid enough. It worked fine when there was no wind, however on a day with a decent headwind, the guard bent backward due to the wind stress. Rather than start completely over, I had an idea to add rigidity -

Yup, I just cut a standard clothing hanger, added some glue, and put some packaging tape over the top. So far so good.

If you plan on making your own mudguard do keep in mind the rigidity factor. Other guards we have featured have featured floor mats, shoes, and beer cans. I like my mudguard because it ranks high on the ghetto scale, but I am going to keep my eye out for over-sized beer cans for another possible attempt.

04/24/2013

Reader Jorge contacted us and stated that he likes to write and has a bike. He built his bike from scratch and writes about his rationale in choosing his build and shares some of his hacks. Enjoy!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Hi. This is my bicycle. It rocks. I'll tell you some of the reasons why... and share a handful of my very own bike-hacks.

First. Well, it's a bicycle,
right? If you are reading this you already know... I hardly need mention
that a bike can be an object of respect and lust; both sexy and utilitarian,
sleek and rugged, and above all, it can be a tool that bestows on its user many
great powers… powers that are just a few watts shy of super-powers. We
may not fly. But we can bunny-hop. We may not be able to dead-lift
one car to save a baby. But we can pass a dozen as they slog toward a
traffic light. And while we are at it, we can make funny faces at the
occasional back-facing baby.

I built my bike from scratch and
christened her Golondrina. It’s Spanish for swallow (the bird, not
the verb)… It comes from this famous old Mexican song in which the author
considers the little black migratory bird and wonders longingly “where
could she be heading, so fast and exhausted?” That seemed like a good
motto for my new bike… and I upon it. They know not where, but go fast
and exhausted!

When I moved to California last
year, I found myself temporarily in urgent need of a means to commute 6 miles
to work until my truck and motorcycle arrived from Rhode Island. A
bicycle might do the trick. Since I already owned two bicycles (also, for
the time being, on the wrong coast) I wanted to keep my investment cheap
bordering on disposable while hoping to avoid the Walmart look. For $150
I got my hands on a used fixie.... It came with cyclo-crossish
tires, which urged me to venture out on the dirt, and soon I was loving all the
new found trails, and my new found lungs... and the cheaply made crank-set was
falling apart, and the wheels were showing signs of irreparable damage.
So I decided that I would build myself a new bike.

This would be the first time I built
a bicycle, and I decided it should be the last. What I mean is that when
you get to select every bit of bike... from stem to rear hub, from spokes to
handlebar tape, you have time to think… what is it that matters to
you?

My own answer was easy: durability…
toughness, resilience, permanence, if at all possible (without going into
Titanic territory) indestructibility. My new bike – I decided before I
tightened the first nut – should be built to be my last bike.

I’m not that original. I got the
idea for my project from reading the book “It’s all about the Bike” (http://www.robpenn.net)
in which the author lovingly describes the process of building his dream
bike. By the way, I am in no way
affiliated with him. But as a fellow lover of the bicycle, I wish him
well. May he sell lots of books! At any rate, I suspect other
self-described bike-hackers will probably enjoy the read as much as I did.

Anyway, as I was saying: durability. This to me meant two things.

Number one. Stainless
steel. Wherever possible. Frame. Crank-set.
Chain-ring. Cog. Spokes. Hubs. Even my water bottle is
stainless. But it’s not a perfect world so, if something must be aluminum
(rims and handlebar), then double walled, reinforced, and extra thick, if you
please.

My stainless steel frame is a Surly
1x1. So, you never heard of a Surly? Well, a year ago, neither had
I. But once I heard about them, I started hearing more… like, check this
one out, a Surly on its way to the South Pole.

Number two. Simplicity.
Simplicity is awesome. Simplicity means there are few things that can
break. Simplicity means that, should you somehow contrive to break one of
them things anyway (because, like, you were careless, and dropped your bike
from the third floor window) you can probably fix it with a crescent wrench and
a hammer.

And what – dear reader – is simpler
than a fixed gear bike? (except perhaps a unicycle) No gears. No
derailleurs. No brakes (optional). And thus, no cables. Not
even a freewheeling rear hub!

So, you say a fixie is not your cup
of tea? Fine. But I'll tell you something, I have ridden bikes for
30 years. I rode my first fixie only this year... and I’m never going
back to gears. Maybe it’s a midlife
crisis thing… trying to hipsterify myself at 40. But whatever the cause, it got me to fall in
love with pedaling, all over again. I can't quite explain it, but if you
are fixie-curious, just give it a shot... you'll see what I mean.

Fine, you say, a fixie may be good
enough if you intend out of it nothing more consequential than strolling harmlessly
about the neighborhood. Or even (if you dare), doing crazy brake-less
street tricks. But a single gear is not
for serious long-distance bicycling. Ah. Yes. Well.
They forgot to tell this guy riding to Everest on a single speed.

It took me a few months to build
Golondrina: the bike that is good for everything, if you intend everything to
be hard. On any kind of a long descent, my legs turn to blenders.
On any respectable climb, I find myself standing, cursing, vein-a-popping,
grunting, snarling, and inexorably, walking.

And yet somehow... I've never once
missed my old gears! Especially when I'm pedaling alongside my wife...
her steed clinking and clanking and chain-skipping, while Golondrina hums along
in perfect stealth silence.

Ah.
But is seems I've gone astray and written way long, and I haven't mentioned a
single hack. So let me... um, change gears, and share with you my humble
contributions to the universe of bike-hacking.

1. As you
new-found leg super-powers can produce 100% back-wheel breaking (once you get
the hang of it), as a fixie rider, you can opt for: both, front-only, or no
brakes. I went for the middle option
(the awkward no-man’s land between sissy and suicidal). But that raised the aesthetic question: What
to do with the extra brake-lever and hood?
No man wants a… um, limp lever… nor a lopsided handle-bar.

Browsing through the bike isle at REI I came
upon my answer. A little (stainless
steel) “incredibell”. It fit perfectly
(well, kind off) in the hollow space where the rear-brake lever used to be. And there was even (arguably), a certain logic
to the unusual arrangement: should I
find myself about to rear-end some unfortunate pedestrian, I have two options:
a) slam the front brake and probably flip rear-hub-over-head, or b) give them a
courtesy “ding-ding!”

2. I don’t
know why, but the mounts that came with my fenders, did not hold the fender
close enough to the tire. This looks
goofy, and probably defeats the point.
So, I provided a solid but flexible mounting point for my rear fender
using a wine-cork, 2 zip-ties, and an appropriately sized doohikie (I used a
plastic dry-wall anchor, I’m sure a pen-cap would work fine). See Figure A for a better explanation.

3 & 4.
I provided additional solid but flexible mounting points for my front and rear fender
using pieces of braid-reinforced hydraulic hose like the one shown in Figure B. I simply bolts (stainless steel) with nuts
and washers to attach the fender to a cut-to-fit length of hose.

5. I
mounted my trailer hitch (for towing two hooting monkeys… aka my offspring)
onto the rear disc-brake mount (where, as previously discussed, no brakes will
ever live). My axle bolt was not long
enough to engage all the threads of the trailer hitch nut… and I’d be damned if
I was going to mess with that rear wheel after I spent several hours lovingly threading
each spoke myself!

6. After a
brief and terrifying experience wherein my right shoelaces were chewed in one
side of the chain ring and spat out the other (while my ankle bent in an
unusual direction)… I came up with this one.
Both ends of my shoe-laces now come out on the “outboard” side of my
shoes. When thus tied, my shoelaces are
less inclined to ever want to kill me again.

7. A few yards of camouflage gorilla tape, wrapped
around my top-tube… Why? Because you
never know when the zombie apocalypse is going to hit… and if you don’t have
some duct tape handy, your chances of survival are significantly reduced!

8. Presta
or Schrader? Yes. Figure C shows a Presta valve with a Schrader
adaptor. This way I get all the pros (Presta
is easier to hand-pump and the small diameter penetration through the rim
means… you got it, durability. But of
course, Schrader is in every gas station, ready to do my bidding) none of the
cons (All my life, I kept breaking the stupid lock-nut doohikies on Presta
valves… maybe I’m a slow learner).

04/10/2013

I do not mind riding in the rain, but one downside is wet shoes. Wet shoes take a long time to dry and as a result can start to smell musty. Newspaper and powder can be used to help with drying and "de-stinking," but it is also a good idea to take measures to keep water away from your shoes as much as possible.

Even though I ride with fenders, I have found that my shoes get really wet because when I ride through big puddles, the water kicks up right at shoe height. My fenders have a small mudguard, but it is not big enough to avoid the splash impact.

In an effort to fend off the spray, I decided to create my own additional mudguard. I started off by cutting a magazine page in the shape of what I thought would do the trick.

My first thought was to use a milk carton, but the milk carton did not seem to have the surface area shape I needed to conform to my cutout.

I started looking around a had and spotted a surge protector I had purchased but not opened. The packaging looked about the right size so I opened . . .

. . . and it was the right size.

I added some velcro to my fender and to the mudflap so I could attach and remove as I liked . . .

. . . and now I just need for it to rain to test it out. I report back when tested.

01/31/2013

Although I have fenders on my commuter bike, my feet still get wet when riding through some large puddles. The over-spray is just at shoe height as it comes off the fender and mudflap. We have seen beer cans repurposed for this cause and I have been thinking about what other materials might work for me. I witnessed one possibility on a recent trip to NYC. As always, food delivery riders never disappoint when it comes to hacks.

I certainly would not want anything from the streets of NYC on me, and this entrepreneurial rider seems to have taken an old door mat rug and repurposed it into a mudflap.

12/04/2012

Back in my beauty is in the eye of the beholder post I noted that I went to town with a can of Krylon Orange Pumpkin Gloss and coated the new Planet Bike fenders that came on my Globe. I was torn because I think I did too good of a job. It all came out pretty even and I did not attempt to smear or paint erratically like I had done with a former bike.

I had contemplated using some more paint, perhaps purple to make the fenders look even more hideous, however the nice, even paint job also provided a canvas of sorts. During a bit of down time recently I was staring at my bike and an idea came to me. I grabbed a Sharpie and my front fender now is a billboard of sorts. At first I thought the back fender would be better so people could see it while I ride, however I decided the back fender might be better saved for reflective sticky things (f0reshadowing).